Daily Excelsior...Business

Initiative Media ties
up with Aarean

MUMBAI, Nov 9: Initiative Media, the pioneer in the field of media services in India, has tied up with Aarean, India’s leading professional outdoor.....more

Care retains ‘PR1’ rating assigned to CP issue of UBL

MUMBAI, Nov 9: Care has retained the PR1 (pr one) rating assigned to the commercial paper issue of Usha Beltron Ltd (UBL) for an amount of Rs 750 ......more

IDBI for hiking salary
structure of its executives

MUMBAI, Nov 9: Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) has approached the Union Finance Ministry with a proposal for hiking the salary...more

Ram Naik

Naik calls upon
geo-scientists

PANAJI, Nov 9: Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Ram Naik has called upon the geo-scientists to come....more

Pepsi’s Y2K scheme
challenged, MNC
charged with cheating

NEW DELHI, Nov 9: The US agro-foods giants Pepsi is in the dock for not keeping its promise of giving gift under its ‘Y2K prize scheme’ to a consumer. Mr Sandeep Singh has dragged the multi-national to the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission ......more

HP Govt approves
allotment of 100
micro-hydel projects

SHIMLA, Nov 9: The Himachal Pradesh Government has approved allotment of 100 micro-hydel projects in the state to sixty-three firms......more

KRL to invest Rs 4320
crore for capacity expansion

NEW DELHI, Nov 9: Kochi Refineries Ltd will invest Rs 4320 crore to increase its refining capacity by six million tonnes to 13.5 million tonnes. ......more

SAS Inc CEO visiting
India on Nov 14

MUMBAI, Nov 9: Andre Bosivert, President and Chief Operating Officer of SAS Inc, the one billion world leader in data warehousing and data mining ....more

Initiative Media ties up with Aarean

MUMBAI, Nov 9: Initiative Media, the pioneer in the field of media services in India, has tied up with Aarean, India’s leading professional outdoor advertising company to form Aaren-Initiative.

Aaren-Initiative will provide the entire advertising industry with services in the outdoor area, which will be well beyond just hoardings. Street furniture, mobile media and other such advertising opportunities will be created.

Aaren-Initiative will bring into India, the latest in technology from all over the world. These outdoor services will be offered in 23 large cities including the 5 metoros.It will also have exclusive rights over all Aaren’s existing sites.

This is for the first time in India, Aaren-Initiative will be offering a scientific process for combining media planning, media buying and creative inputs for outdoor advertising. Lintas Integrated Outdoor Planning and Evaluation (LINOPES) will also be used to give the clients the best possible results. "Our focus will be to professionalise an industry where chaos rules. We also hope to offer outdoor solutions that meet brand needs and are in consonance with their positioning. However, at all times, we will try to make the outdoor landscape as aesthetic as possible currently no one seems worried about outdoor sites making the city look ugly. We hope to correct that by following all rules and regulations" said Ashish Bhasin, Managing Director Aaren-Initiative. (UNI)

Care retains ‘PR1’ rating assigned to CP issue of UBL

MUMBAI, Nov 9: Care has retained the PR1 (pr one) rating assigned to the commercial paper issue of Usha Beltron Ltd (UBL) for an amount of Rs 750 mn. UBL is mainly engaged in the manufacture of steel wire rods (using the mini blast furnace and electric are furnace route), steel wires and wire ropes (mainly from the wire rods produced by it) and Jelly Filled Telecom Cables (JFTC).

The rating takes into account promoters’ experience in UBL’s areas of operations, UBL’s strong position in most wire and wire ropes categories, continuing industry downtrend in steel and steel related products and the impact of ongoing modernisation and proposed expansion programmes on the debt servicing capacity of UBL.

Care has retained the PR1 " (pr one plus) rating assigned to the commercial paper issue of Simplex Concrete Piles (India) Ltd (Simplex) for an amount upto Rs 300 mn. The rating takes into account simplex’s satisfactory and long track record, strong position in the construction industry, its comfortable order book position and adequate liquidity position.

Care has assigned a PR1 plus rating to the commercial paper programme of Hindustan Construction Company Ltd (HCC) for Rs 200 mn (size enhanced from Rs 150 mn). The rating reflects HCC’s long track record and its demonstrated expertise in the civil engineering and construction business.

Income for FY’2000 fell by 16 per cent over that of FY’99, mainly due to decline in order book position and lack of fresh orders bagged by HCC. During July-September 2000, HCC has reversed the trend in its order book position and has secured four more orders aggregating Rs 7005 mn (HCC’s share). Despite decrease in income, HCC’s Pbildt and Pat during FY’2000, grew at 35.5 per cent and 132.6 per cent respectively. This was mainly due to better contract management, equipment and procurement efficiencies, wastage control and better subcontractor management.

The Care BB (Double B) rating assigned to the non-convertible debenture programme of Asia Pack Ltd has been withdrawn, as it has discontinued the NCD programme and there are no outstanding against the rated issue, a press release stated here yesterday. (UNI)

IDBI for hiking salary structure of its executives

MUMBAI, Nov 9: Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) has approached the Union Finance Ministry with a proposal for hiking the salary structure of its executives and staff by atleast 7 to 10 times from the present structure.

A hike in salary structure in the competitive banking environment is essential to retain the talented manpower with the country’s leading Development Financial Institution (DFI). Our average salary structure is 6 to 7 times lower then our nearest competitor , said a senior executive of IDBI. IDBI intended to offer a salary structure which would be market driven and cost-base, the official said.

Currently, the cost of each employee in the entire financial burden of IDBI is less than one per cent. Though IDBI is currently enjoying the functional autonomy like commercial business decisions, it does not have the administrative freedom such as increase the payment package for talented professionals. Therefore, we need formal approval from our major shareholder and owner—Government, he added. (UNI)

Naik calls upon geo-scientists

PANAJI, Nov 9: Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Ram Naik has called upon the geo-scientists to come forward and lead the nation in finding viable strategies to explore and exploit the hydro-carbon resources as the demand for oil has been increasing at an accelerated pace due to buoyancy of economy.

Addressing a gathering after inaugurating a seminar on exploration geo-physicists, here yesterday, Mr Naik said though the demand for crude oil is increasing day by day, oil production has remained almost stagnant because no no major discoveries could be made after Mumbai high.

The utmost concern for the country today is to find and produce more oil and gas and increase domestic availability, he said adding that earth scientists can play a vital role in this area and called for their concerted efforts to help the country in discovering untapped resources. Without substantial domestic production, the nation will be subject to vagaries of fluctuations of crude oil prices and "oil security" would be a dream, he said.

"We have large sedimentary areas of about 3.40 million square billion tonnes of which about 6.85 billion tonnes has been discovered so far and nearly 40 per cent of the sedimentary area still remains unexplored. Such a scenario calls for more hands and brains for exploration."

The Government has invited bids for six explorations rounds and two rounds of discovered fields for private or joint sector participation. As a result of this 23 exploration blocks and 30 discovered fields have been awarded to private and joint venture companies.

The Government is now planning to offer exploration blocks in bidding grounds every year to accelerate the efforts further, he added. (UNI)

Pepsi’s Y2K scheme challenged, MNC
charged with cheating

NEW DELHI, Nov 9: The US agro-foods giants Pepsi is in the dock for not keeping its promise of giving gift under its ‘Y2K prize scheme’ to a consumer.

Mr Sandeep Singh has dragged the multi-national to the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) for not keeping its promise and denying him an Opel Corsa won as ‘gift’ by him under the ‘Y2K’ scheme.

Under the Y2K contest, which was a part of the Y2K ad-campaign, M/S Pepsi Foods Ltd. promised consumers an entire gamut of prizes starting with a spanking new Opel Corsa to those lucky enough to get hold of beverage bottles having these prizes inscribed on their crowns.

Mr Singh, a resident of Arjun Nagar, New Delhi, was thrilled to find a car (the Corsa) inscribed on the inner lining and the crown of the Pepsi Cola he had consumed. He thought he was the luckiest person around to have won the car, but his dreams were to be short-lived.

Pepsi did not acknowledge receiving any request from him, nor did it agree to keep its promise of gifting the corsa. After all his efforts to convince the MNC about the claim failed, a disgusted Singh knocked the door of the commission claiming compensation for the acts of the company.

The commission has issued show cause notice to pepsi on the petition under Section 12 B of the MRTP Act, 1969, asking why the damage claim should not be allowed and penalty imposed on it.

Mr Singh complained to the commission that on October 24 last year when he purchased the Pepsi bottle and found the gift inscribed on the crown, he put forth his demand to the candid, the promotion agents of Pepsi, who directed him to send the inner lining of the sleeve of the crown to their New Delhi post box address.

Though he received the acknowledgement for the registered post carrying the inner lining from the candid, no response was forthcoming from the other end. After repeated inquiries, the agents washed their hands off the matter stating that they were only a conduit and only their post box was being used, with all resultant mail being sent unopened to the auditors of the scheme — M/S Billimoria and Company.

Subsequently, the consumer got in touch with the Pepsi head office in Gurgaon and contacted Mr Llod Matthais, Vice-President (Marketing) who was the person in charge of the contest in December.

Mr Matthais informed Mr Singh through a letter dated January four, 2000 that the auditors had not received his post containing the prize winning sleeve. However, in order to substantiate his claim, the Delhi resident faxed the registered letter’s receipt but got no response from Mr Matthais or anyone else at Pepsi.

The inquiries made at the office of the Senior Superintendent of Post Offices, South-East division, New Delhi, confirmed delivery of his letter dated October 30, 1999, to the post box of the candid. Mr Singh while passing on the information to Pepsi also informed that the original crown with the car inscribed in it was still in his possession.

However, Pepsi made no attempts to trace out the letter or ask Mr Singh for the original crown. It became quite apparent that despite his repeated attempts, dispatch of letters and personal visits, pepsi was least interested in acknowledging the prize scheme.

After sending a legal notice to Pepsi on February 22 this year and receiving no response from the multi-national, it approached the commission.

"The deliberate silence of the officials of the transnational makes it nothing but apparent that it has been indulging in gross unfair trade practice by conducting such prize schemes with a view to attract more and more consumers but with no intention of rewarding the winners," the complaint noted.

Resorting to such bogus schemes is not only prejudicial to public interests but also affects the sales of other beverages in the market, it added.

Such acts are violative of Section 36 A (3) (I) of the MRTP Act which inter alias states, "offering of gifts or prizes or other items with the intention of not providing them as offered ... Is an unfair trade practice."

From the facts it’s quite apparent that the Pepsi indulged in misleading and deceptive trade practices, Mr Singh contended.

He said it was not the refusal of the Pepsi to give the ‘gift’, but what aggravated the situation was the utter lack of transparency in the way Pepsi dealt with the whole issue and the crass indifference with which Mr Singh has been treated by the multinational. (UNI)

HP Govt approves allotment of 100 micro-hydel projects

SHIMLA, Nov 9: The Himachal Pradesh Government has approved allotment of 100 micro-hydel projects in the state to sixty-three firms.

The approval was given at a Cabinet meeting presided over by Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal here yesterday, an official spokesman said.

The projects, each with a capacity of upto three mw, are expected to bring in Rs 1,000 crore investment in the next four to five years and yield a total of 164.77 mw hydel power.

Fortysix of the projects are self identified by entrepreneurs and the remaining adverstised by Himurja, a state-owned energy development agency.

The projects were also likely to lead to opening up of backward areas to economic development and increase employment opportunities. (UNI)

KRL to invest Rs 4320 crore for capacity expansion

NEW DELHI, Nov 9: Kochi Refineries Ltd will invest Rs 4320 crore to increase its refining capacity by six million tonnes to 13.5 million tonnes.

Public Investment Board (PIB) has recently approved the capacity expansion project entailing a cost of Rs 4320 crore and envisaging period of mechanical completion in 36 months, KRL Chairman and Managing Director K L Kumar told PTI here.

The proposal is likely to be put before the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) for approval soon, he said adding construction would begin immediately upon receipt of Government approval.

Incidentally, the Government has planned to align the stand-alone refinery as subsidiary of oil marketing company Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) and the Government approval may be delayed till BPCL completes evaluation of KRL and decides on price it would pay for taking over the 7.5 million tonnes refinery, Petroleum Ministry sources said.

Kumar said the project would be funded through a mix of internal accruals and debt and added that financial tie-up for the expansion projects are nearly complete.

KRL would complete the Rs 535 crore cross-country pipeline project connecting Cochin, Coimbatore and Karur by March 2001, company sources said adding the project is being implemented jointly with BPCL and Petronet India Ltd.

The 290 km multi-product pipeline project, in which KRL has 23 per cent equity, would have a throughout of 3.3 million tonnes in the first year of operation which would be increased to four million tonnes by 2006-07. (PTI)